Furlough Coming To An end!

Hello readers.

So my time prancing about in front of my tv watching Team Body Project and all the other fitness kings and queens out there is coming to an end!  I am going back to work this time next week!  Nervous.....yes, pleased to be going back.......yes!  It has been fun doing my workouts with Janice, my workout buddy! 

I started doing the workouts because of the restrictions, stay home, protect the NHS and all that.  I tried to do the one bit of exercise that the government said we could do but, looking back, I don't think my head was in it.  Finding every excuse to stay home, no need to go out!   Then of course it was the anxiety of going out!  A few times of running by myself, it just felt so weird!  People moving away from you, giving you looks as if you shouldn't be out.  Mums hugging children to their legs as you get closer to them for you to pass with the obligatory 2 meters! Eerily empty roads and just an overwhelming sense of WTF!  That about explains how it felt to run in the beginning of lockdown.  But the longer I stayed away from running the harder it seemed to get back out their.  Which is why doing my exercising using YouTube, watching Team Body Project, Jordan burns, Adele Murrell and PopSugar really help to keep me active.  it was just as well, because apart from those 30-60 minutues I was mainly sedentary!  Apart from when I was hanging out of the fridge!

So for the last few weeks I have been doing my exercises, running with PWR a couple of times on Thursday mornings and of course there was the Fitness in the park with PWR too.  There has been a couple of solo runs too, but I struggled with them, blaming heat, technology, anything really.  But what prompted me to write this evening was about my run today.

Today I exercises in front of my t.v. going live on Facebook, ready to workout with my workout buddy.  I had to few things to do, phone calls to make before hand, including one to SMF to find a part for my car, they had it!  So I decided to run their after my workout!  The workout I chose was TBP with Alex leading, usually she is a machine!  But I wanted to do a hard one, to just get hot, sweaty, get those endorphins running through my body, push as hard as I could!  Well I did that! It was a great workout and I tried as hard as I could! I was satisfied.  In fact I was so satisfied I really didn't fancy walking or running to the car parts shop, so I called my daughter to give me a lift!  Fortunately she was heading out somewhere so I had to go by myself.

So I went!  I got ready, my money for the car part (which was very small by the way) and went out!  The route I took is one that I usually go with Naggy, through the park, and up the road!  So I did it, I only put on my Garmin to track me, no Jabra, no Peloton, well, I knew I was going to have to pause everything when I go into the shop, pausing my Garmin was the easiest.  I do like to listen to something though, so I put on spotify and started running.  The sounds of the 70's filled my ears, that's what I had chosen, just to take me back to a time when I didn't have too many cares and woes!  It was brilliant!  I was loving the tunes, I was smiling and singing along.  I found I was enjoying my run, I mean really enjoying it! I ignored the buzzing going on from my Garmin to tell me to walk for a minute and just carried on running!  I had no agenda, no one to keep up with, no app telling me my pace or to speed up!  Not that I don't like that, I like geeky stats, I like to listen to peloton to tell me to try just that little bit harder, but right at that minute I didn't want it nor need it!  I was enjoying my run!

Sometimes I ran pretty fast, sometimes I just plodded along other times I walked and the ran again when I felt like it, not because my Garmin told me too.  I got to the shop and pause my Garmin, bought my park and then continued my running! Originally I thought I was just going to go back the same way that I got here, instead I opted to just continue on my run, do the 5k, the 3 miles, just do it as I have done it so far.

As I ran along I joined in with the songs that filled my ears.  Lord knows what I must have sounded like as I am sure I was singing out loud!  But it was too good not to sing along!  As I got to Trinity Estates, the new estate on the corner of Crown Lane Spur 'Grease' came on!  I as actually doing the arm movements! Still smiling, still singing!  Loving it!

So yes, the love of running is still there, I just need to remember that, I need to ease the pressures of of keeping up!  When we get back to club running again there is going to be so many people that will have their post COVID fears, bodys and thoughts with them, we are all going to be in the same boat, only some of us will have had the cheap tickets, down in the bow of the boat no desire to run in, others will have had the dearer tickets, up top with the running track around the deck!  But still, we have all been avoiding the COVID sea, we still all have had to deal with isolation and the anxieties that can come with it!

The new normal is coming and I am glad I have had the desire to still want to go running (even though for quite some time I have struggled with it) and I am grateful that my running club is still there ready to welcome back all members, with social distancing of course.

What Have I Been Up To?

Hello Blog readers.

Well, quite a bit since the last blog!  The for a start, I have finished my One Year No Beer challenge!  A challenge I decided to set by myself, for no particular reason other than I thought I could do it, and I wrote a blog about it, which I started just about a week after I started the challenge and added to over the year!

What else, well, I have done some running! Woo Hoo, some actual running rather than just me working out in my sitting room. I have also been meeting up with my PWR buddies to do Fitness In The Park, our usual summer sessions that we do with out club!  Of course it's all been totally different!  For a start, we have had to split everybody over two parks and then have 1 leader per 5 members.  We have had to have a booking system because of numbers, leaders, and spaces in the two parks.  It works, ok, it's not our usual speed and core sessions but it still feels great to be doing club stuff.

What else, hmm!  The only problem about not writing everything down on the day I do things is that I forget what I have done! Oh yes,  I have done maybe one or two solo runs but also a couple of Thursday morning runs with my run buddies at PWR!  Oh my goodness, totally mixed feelings about the running!  For a start, working out in my sitting room and running are two completely different animals!  Before Covid I was fairly active, I had a regular routine of running, moving, walking. After Covid I have had a regular route of doing half hour workout and sitting on my arse for the rest of the day! Well, maybe some housework thrown in, but yeah, mainly not moving much from my front door! My first run on a Thursday was not last Thursday but the Thursday before that, Illustrious Leader was leading group 1, there were 6 of us in a group!  I am sure that most of them have been running solo throughout Covid!  Anyway, I thought I should be ok, I was so looking forward to going through the woods.  Starting off, of course is always hard, when I was at my fittest it took me at least the first 10 to 15 minutes to get into my stride, and the breathing right!  But if you had seen me trying to keep up with Illustrious leader and everyone you would have thought I had never ran before!

When I have been doing my solo running and have been 'Jeffing' all the way, 1 minute run, 1 minute walk, even then I have been struggling!  But Illustrious Leader and all the rest in the group I was running in completely understand my situation because they are all the same......they are just a tad run fitter than me! "Don't worry, Old Girl" says Illustrious Leader "We can wait or we can turn around and run back to you, just go at your own pace"  That's the best thing about our club, we don't leave people to struggle by themselves (even though I had said to her to just carry on and I will take my time as see them back at the rec!) But there were quite a few times they had to run back to me that I began to feel sorry for them, I kept imagining them thinking "Oh blimey back again"  Of course they wasn't, but I still felt like 'Private Pile' from 'Full metal Jacket' 

I kept checking they all had their socks on was they were heading back to me! It's amazing how much I 'beat myself up' something I had learned to stop doing and just enjoy running, but getting back to club running I felt I have to be just as I was, able to keep up, not dragging my ass or getting others to my ass around, but really, everyone is in the same boat as me, we've all struggled through this Covid time and we all need encouragement, we certainly don't need to beat ourselves up that's.  But its funny the things that come into you mind when your struggling!

The second time I went with them, we had run a little further, taking a little bit longer, but I felt I was a little bit quicker than the week before, I was still way behind but definitely not as bad as the week before.

Of course, every weekday I have been working out in my sitting room, going live on Facebook for all to see and working out with Janice! Every day she is working out with me too, even after she has done a 3 miler first thing in the morning!  Having Janice there has really kept my motivation to keep pressing play on Team Body Project you tube videos!

Also I have been working out with the neighbours still, Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings!  That has been fun, but until park run or PWR activities begin again I shall be doing that!  September though, I will have to rethink the Wednesday evening sessions because I shall be back at work!

Today I did a very short run, I had a club meeting to find out what and how things will look for club members when we meet up again soon, I walked there, (only because I didn't want to look completely all hot and sweaty and breathing heavy) and then I ran/walked home!

So that about sums it all up!  The new norm is coming, until they find a vaccine for this damned virus, things will be different but I will be so glad to get back to the (new)routine of club running!

P.s.

I got back on my bike too!  I shall write in my cycling blog about that! Very pleased about that!